The invention relates to an oven in which at least one cooling air blower generates a cooling air current in cooling air ducting in the housing containing an incoming air duct and a discharge duct, this current flowing through the space in the oven door between the outer panel of the oven door and an inner panel of the oven door.
DE-OS 25 33 515 describes a ducted air cooling system designed to keep the outer surfaces of a cooker below predetermined maximum temperatures when the oven is in use. A cooling air blower draws in the cooling air through inlet apertures below the oven door and inlet apertures on the lower edge of the oven door. The cooling air disperses within the cooling air ducts of the housing and prevents inadmissible heat transfer from the surfaces of the thermally insulated oven muffle to the external surfaces and the bottom surface of the cooker. The oven door and the door panels are also cooled as a result of the air flow in the space between the outermost panel of the oven door and an internal panel of the oven door which is designed as a double panel.
A similar cooling system, used in a double oven, is described in DE OS 28 30 342.
Cooling of an oven door during a pyrolytic cleaning process is achieved in one cooker by several cooling air currents ducted upwards inside the oven door according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,163,444. This allows the temperature to be reduced in stages from the internal side of the oven door to the surface of the outermost panel of the oven door as a result of the parallel cooling air currents.
Finally, DE GM 87 05 364 shows a partitioned glass front covering the control panel and the oven door, the oven door being thermally isolated from the body of the door by a cooling air duct situated on the back of the glass front. The cooling air flowing upwards in the space between the body of the door and the front panel of the oven door is discharged, without specific air ducting in the lower section of the saucer-shaped glass front, through a slit aperture between the upper and lower sections.
In principle, both ascending air ducting with an exhaust air duct at the top, usefully extending over the entire width of the oven door, and air ducting directed downwards with a slit-shaped exit from the exhaust air duct below the oven door are possible. In the case of ascending air ducting and discharge from the exhaust air duct at the level of the control panel, a warm air flow which the user may find unpleasant may occur in certain circumstances.
Thus, DE AS 23 29 024 describes a division of the exhaust air ducting from the discharge side of the cooker by a flow conductor in the shape of a V-shaped wedge, so that the cooling air drawn in from below is discharged above the oven door through two discharge apertures situated at the side into the surrounding environment. This exhaust air ducting and the enlargement of the discharge area are intended, on the one hand, to reduce the temperature of the heating cooling air discharged and, on the other, to prevent air being blown directly at the user standing in front of the cooker.
A V-shaped flow conductor which diverts the flow of cooling air generated by a blower to discharge apertures situated to the side below the control panel is also described in DE OS 23 10 290 and DE OS 23 52 961. Moreover, in DE OS 26 56 565, a ridge-type flow conductor is used in an oven to guide some of the cooling air current in the vicinity of the air discharge recess at the back to the outlet of a vapor extraction duct and hence to achieve vapor extraction mixed with the discharged, heated cooling air. These known flow conductors in the vicinity of the exhaust air duct are not used in conjunction with an oven door through which cooling air flows, so that no steps are required in the known contexts to prevent the undesired reentry of the heated cooling air discharged at the outlet apertures of the exhaust air duct into the intake apertures of the oven door (short circuit ducting).
Cooling air ducting within and across the whole width of the door, which is essentially uniformly distributed, does not take adequate account of the actual temperature distribution which may result in particularly high temperatures occurring in the middle section of the outermost oven door panel.